Marois wants to sell $6M Montreal home to European businessman, but law prohibits sale of agricultural land to foreigners

Pauline Marois wants to sell $6M Montreal home to European businessman

The $6-million sale of the Montreal-area château owned by Quebec Premier Pauline Marois to a wealthy European businessman has been held up by a unique Quebec provision that bars the sale of agricultural land to foreigners.

But because the 15.5-hectare estate is considered agricultural land — and thus cannot be owned by non-residents — the final sale remains pending, as Mr. Rochemont potentially faces months of dealing with Quebec immigration authorities to secure status as a permanent resident.

Several provinces have provisions to protect agricultural land from foreign ownership, such as Saskatchewan’s rule limiting non-Canadian buyers to a maximum of 10 acres (4.05 hectares).

However, Quebec is believed to be the only province that blocks foreign ownership of agricultural land outright, barring explicit permission from the Commission de protection du territoire agricole (Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land). Mr. Rochemond will also be required to live on the land for more than six months a year.

The provisions were introduced under the government of premier René Lévesque, the founder of Ms. Marois’ Parti Québécois.

During the 1976 election campaign, the PQ leader had warned that, due to foreign speculators, Quebec land was “literally being pulled from beneath our feet,” according to a January post on the Quebec politics website Vigile.net.

But the law may not have been entirely nationalistic: Less than 2% of Quebec is suitable for farming, compared to 12% next door in Ontario.

Furthermore, fears of dwindling farmland were high in the 1970s, particularly after megaprojects like Montreal’s Mirabel airport, an embarrassingly underused facility that was built on expropriated farmland rivaling the size of Montreal itself.

Located on Ile Bizard, a residential enclave just west of the Island of Montreal, La Closerie has been on the market since 2009, after Ms. Marois’ four children flew the nest.

“The children have moved out, so they made the decision as a family to live in [Ms. Marois’ Charlevoix] riding,” Pascal Monette, the PQ’s communications director, told the Montreal Gazette at the time.

Last December, Marie Barrette, Ms. Marois’s press attaché, told the Journal de Québec there were no conditions that the buyer be francophone, but it would be “better” if they were.

“It’s nice. That makes one more in Quebec,” she said.

A now-removed listing by Sotheby’s International Realty calls the house a “very elegant French-style villa” and the surrounding property “an oasis of peace and tranquility that blends seamlessly into its natural surrounding.”

The mansion has been said to resemble the Château de Moulinsart, the country home of Captain Haddock, a character in the Tintin comic book series.

It has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a Jacuzzi bathtub, guillotine windows and central air-conditioning, leading a Radio-Canada TV host to dub it “a political albatross” in regards to Ms. Marois’ efforts to connect with ordinary Quebecers.

Little is known of the would-be buyer. La Presse reported Mr. Rochemont was born in France, works largely in Belgium and is “extremely private,” according to his real estate agent.